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JonBenét Ramsey grand jury indictment puts DA decision in spotlight

Former Boulder DA Alex Hunter talks to the media about the JonBenét Ramsey case from his Boulder home in December 2006.

In an alternate world, JonBenét Ramsey would have just graduated from college — an ordinary 23-year-old, her pageant-dress childhood far behind.

Instead, nearly 17 years after JonBenét's slaying, the biggest news item in Colorado on Friday will again be about a court case that never was and a little girl who will forever be 6. A judge is set to release a 14-year-old indictment against JonBenét's parents that Boulder's top prosecutor sought but refused to sign.

The decision — both not to prosecute the case and to ultimately release the document — are unprecedented in Colorado, legal analysts said Thursday. But that just makes it one more peculiar detail in a saga brimming with the bizarre that continues to captivate public attention.

"The thing about the Ramsey case is, every now and then, it's like a volcano. It explodes," said University of Colorado professor Michael Tracey, who for years has studied the Ramsey case and often become entangled in it.

But even Tracey is stumped by Friday's disclosure.

"I have no idea what that means," he said.

Former Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter convened the grand jury in 1999 to investigate JonBenét's death, and for months prosecutors from his office presented evidence to the jurors. But, when the grand jury voted that October to indict John and Patsy Ramsey — reportedly on charges of child abuse resulting in death — Hunter balked at signing the indictment, believing he couldn't prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt in court.

"I have never seen a similar situation," said Denver attorney and legal analyst Dan Recht. "And I don't believe any court in Colorado ever has either."

Judge Robert Lowenbach ruled Wednesday morning that the court would release the indictment Friday in response to a lawsuit brought by Boulder Daily Camera reporter Charlie Brennan and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Karen Steinhauser, a Denver attorney and law professor who started her career as a prosecutor, said she, too, has never heard of a case where a prosecutor has refused to follow a grand jury's wishes — although grand jury secrecy laws make it difficult to say for sure. But Steinhauser said grand jury investigations have fewer evidence rules and lower standards of proof than jury trials. "The district attorney has a higher burden at trial," she said.

"I think the right course of action would have been public disclosure of the grand jury's indictment at the time, followed by a later motion to dismiss if the DA genuinely believed that the case couldn't be successfully prosecuted," said Wesson, who was an attorney on the lawsuit seeking to disclose the indictment.

That this is still a hotly debated question so many years after JonBenét's death shows the abiding public interest around the case — even though the release of the indictment will do little to impact the case.

The statute of limitations on the indictment's charges have long since lapsed. Patsy Ramsey died in 2006. Bryan Morgan, an attorney for John Ramsey, declined to comment. After new DNA evidence became available, Hunter's successor, Mary Lacy, publicly cleared all Ramsey family members in 2008.

"JonBenét is our generation's Lindbergh baby," the Colorado Historical Society's Stan Oliner prophetically told The New York Times in 1997. "...The interest is going to continue for decades."

John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/john_ingold